Laughing, Mr Galazka immediately corrected him: “No, you are both saints, you are both saints.”

Francis’s quip appeared to acknowledge that he has his detractors, particularly among conservative Catholics who long for the more doctrinaire papacies of John Paul and Benedict XVI.

The criticism of Francis by conservatives has grown more vocal recently amid the church’s sex abuse scandals and the distress over his opening to letting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics receive Communion.